Marin rock has lost one of its seminal figures and vibrant personalities. Bill Thompson, longtime manager of the Jefferson Airplane, the Jefferson Starship and Hot Tuna, died of a heart attack on Monday at his home in Mill Valley, friends said. He was 70.

In 1968, following the phenomenal success of the Jefferson Airplane’s second album, “Surrealistic Pillow,” Mr. Thompson replaced rock concert promoter Bill Graham as manager of the band, fronted by Grace Slick, Paul Kantner and Marty Balin, all major talents with big personalities.

“From the people who worked in the office to the crew to the roadies, they all loved Bill,” said David Freiberg of Novato, who played in the Jefferson Airplane and Starship. “Everybody in the band, of course, wanted things, but he did as well as he could. I can’t imagine managing that bunch of people. I don’t know if anybody else could have done it.”

Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1944, Mr. Thompson came to the Bay Area to attend college and worked for a time as a copy boy on the San Francisco Chronicle. Along the way, he became friends and roommates with Balin, which led him into the Jefferson Airplane’s whirling orbit.

In a post on the Relix magazine website, guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, a member of the original Jefferson Airplane and a founder of Hot Tuna, said he thought of Mr. Thompson as a fellow band member.

“His instruments were his phone, his desk and his voice,” he said. “He was one of us.”

As the band’s star was on the rise, Mr. Thompson stabilized and consolidated its finances, established a company to oversee its music publishing and bought the band’s famed 20-room Victorian at 2400 Fulton Street that became the Jefferson Airplane’s office and communal residence. Nicknamed the “Black Mansion” because of its pitch black paint job, it was across from Golden Gate Park, not far from the burgeoning hippie scene in the Haight Ashbury.

“He really was like a father figure to all of us,” said Cynthia Bowman, whom Mr. Thompson hired as publicist for the Starship’s Grunt Records in 1976. “He was a stand-up guy. He always did his best and he always looked after us. He treated the crew, the band, the staff, everybody the same way — with respect and love.”

Mr. Thompson not only handled the business interests of one of the most successful bands of that era, he also had to deal with its well-documented legal entanglements and with record companies and concert promoters in the wild and woolly era when the San Francisco Sound was being heard worldwide. In recent years, he continued to manage the bands’ business interests, placing their hits in movies, TV shows and commercials.

“Bill had a real feeling and profound knowledge of the seedy underbelly of the business, especially in that so-called golden age of rock when large amounts of monies were changing hands,” said San Rafael musician Pete Sears, who played in the Jefferson Starship and Hot Tuna. “Bill was a solid anchor through all that.”